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Larceny - My Fall

There are so many bands popping up all the time, so it’s no surprise that I’ve never heard of Germans LARCENY prior to the promo of their second full length album “My Fall” that arrived in my mailbox. Still, if seeing this album among a bunch others I would have reacted, not as sure if I’d bought it though. The cover is very dramatic and harsh with a faceless black figure sketched on a snowy white background.

No, LARCENY do not particularly play my preferred music style, but again, they stand out from the great mass. The opening, title-track “My Fall” gets stuck due to the catchy chorus line, but still it’s very brutal; the real effect though is when the female vocals enter for the last few rounds of it. “End Of Lies” is a bizarre combination of extreme Death Metal, very fast and brutal riffs. Over that, one harsh voice and a very frail melodic voice make a quite weird combination, but it really works. However, it does get odder, since most of the time it is trade-offs between the soft and harsh voices and on occasion they are combined, while the lyrics are different from each other. During the first few spins I almost thought that something had gone very wrong, but as the album settled, it turned out really cool. I’m talking about the end of “Love! You! Dead!”.

LARCENY’s influences during the first half of the album are close to the Gothenburg sound and if I’d use specific names I’d go with somewhere in the middle of ARCH ENEMY and AT THE GATES, due to the female vocals of course. During the second part and in particular in “Gunpowder Night” and “Still” the overall feeling leans more towards LACUNA COIL; especially in the former, Anna Rantou sounds quite a lot like Christina Scabbia. Another thing that I like about this album is that even if the sound is modern, it is also very organic. Also, when the guitars are heavily distorted, the sound is still very clear and it is not like a solid wall of sound as it is for bands these days. This type of variation also keeps my interest up, even if LARCENY do not hit straight on my taste in music. Or actually, the opening riff in “Smoke & Ashes” should fit right in, since it is a pure Heavy Metal riff. Then by adding the smooth voice of Anna singing a slow melody over it makes yet another cool combination. Closing track, “Eat Me Alive” is another really cool one; it has one part in classic Metal, one in the dark Gothic and the last in modern melodic Death Metal.

Frankly, I can’t find something bad to say about LARCENY’s “My Fall” but at the same time I cannot point out why it didn’t strike me hard. Everything really is in place but that little something extra special is missing...